After Cal disaster, No. 25 Washington tries Stanford

The No. 25 Washington Huskies will try to rebound from a shocking defeat at California when they complete a road trip with a Pac-12 game at Stanford on Sunday afternoon.

The Cardinal (15-13, 8-8) is coming off one of its most impressive victory of the season, a 98-50 shellacking of Washington State on Thursday night. Stanford led 52-15 at halftime, meaning it could have gone scoreless in the second half and still won.

Washington (22-6, 13-2) will be looking to win at Stanford for the first time since 2013. The Huskies have lost four in a row since, including 94-78 last February.

The Huskies have bounced back with a win after each of their previous five losses this season.

Flying south riding a three-game winning streak and ranked for the first time this season, Washington was hoping to celebrate its first outright conference regular-season title since 2012 with a victory at Cal on Thursday. The Huskies wound up clinching that title, but not in the way they had hoped.

They claimed the regular-season title and top seeding in the conference tournament because of losses that night by Arizona State and Oregon State. Washington, meanwhile, lost 76-73 to a Cal team that had been 0-15 in conference play.

"Championships or no championships, all I care about is playing the best that we can play as a team," Washington coach Mike Hopkins said after the loss. "I always say: We've been in uncharted territory. How do you know what you don't know?

"(The loss at Cal) was a great lesson. We just didn't play like you got to play to be a championship-level team."

Washington has a chance Sunday to equal its most wins ever in Pac-12 play. The 2012 conference champs went 14-4.

Actually, the Huskies have three shots at matching and potentially surpassing the 14-win total, with home games against Oregon State and Oregon slated for the week ahead to end the regular season.

Stanford has lost its past five games against ranked opponents, including three this season -- at North Carolina and Kansas, and at a neutral site against Wisconsin.

The Cardinal's last win against a ranked team came in a home game last January against Arizona State.

Stanford figures to face much more of a challenge in the Huskies, who shot 51.7 percent in their 80-64 home win over the Cardinal in January. Jaylen Nowell led four Washington players in double figures that night with 22 points. That point total was matched by Stanford star KZ Okpala, who is averaging 17.4 points per game.

The Cardinal limited Washington State to 30.8 percent shooting on Thursday. Stanford coach Jerod Haase would like to see that carry over to a much more talented opponent on Sunday.

"I thought our energy level was off the charts," he said after Thursday's win. "I loved our energy defensively."

Stanford needs wins its final two games to finish the Pac-12 regular season with a winning record for the second consecutive season. The Cardinal went 11-7 last year.

Stanford wraps up its regular season at home on Thursday night against rival Cal.

--Field Level Media